At the PGA Tour Champions event in Richmond, a festive atmosphere as golf’s best compete

If golf is, as they say, a good walk spoiled, then the Dominion Energy Charity Classic is the perfect antidote — all the beauty of the walk, while leaving the agony of the golf to others.

For the seventh time, the best senior golfers will descend on Richmond this weekend for a PGA Tour Champions playoff event.

They agonize over every drive, chip and putt. You just have to show up and enjoy a beautiful fall day.

Many Richmonders took up that invitation on Friday, on an afternoon so sunny the course might as well have been rebranded Gaskins Beach.

Patrons mingled, enjoying the food and beverage options while generally only slightly aware of the toil happening on the other side of the ropes, where a field of 68 golfers will be trimmed to 54, who will be invited to march on to the next round of the playoffs.

Tournament organizers seem to have thought of everything. Dozens of folding chairs have been set up around the course, and whoever is sitting in the chair when the day’s golf ends can take the chair home.

For the first time, the event will extend to a bonus day of festivities on Monday, when the course hosts seven HBCU teams for the inaugural River City Collegiate Classic.

Friday’s round concluded with a concert by Lauren Alaina, who set up shop between the 1st and 10th holes.

Before the music, though, the world’s best 50-and-older golfers took on the Country Club of Virginia’s James River Course.

Fans congregated around the opening and closing holes, with marshals calling for quiet, then fans waiting to cheer or groan as putts approached the hole.

The biggest names got cheers either way. John Daly, clad in a Trump Golf shirt and Hooters pants, had a festive gallery as he made his way around the course, joined for a while by Richmond’s most unique dresser — Todd “Parney” Parnell of the Richmond Flying Squirrels.

The 68 golfers have a combined 484 victories on the PGA Tour and the senior circuit, the PGA Tour Champions.

The course has been adjusted to create a more difficult environment than it does on the average Tuesday, with the rough grown higher and the greens trimmed to be faster.

It’s not necessary to be a golf aficionado to appreciate what they’re up against. Each day, the golfers take on 7,025 yards of course, with $2.2 million, and those playoff spots, on the line.

Indeed, many fans enjoyed the hospitality tents with an occasional eye on the action, the golf providing the perfect background music on an idyllic fall day.